Carmen Murray is a zookeeper at the Greensboro Science Center. Carmen works with many different animals, including African penguins, Moray eels, baby otters, and an anaconda. WFDD Radio Camper Damon Chrismon spoke with Carmen to learn more about being a zookeeper.

When I first saw Carmen, she was wearing a Greensboro Science Center collared shirt and sunglasses. I introduced myself and we sat down on a bench. Then I asked her if she thought the SciQuarium was a good addition to the Science Center.

I think it's been such a great addition to the Science Center. It opened up last June, so we've been opened right around one year now. We've over doubled our amount of visitors that have come in on a yearly basis. We were hovering right around 1,000 before and we had over 3,000 visitors since last June. I think it's been something that the community around here has been waiting for, something different. We don't really have an aquarium like this in the area, and it's a unique one at that because it's a mixture of birds, animals, and fish.

Carmen said she has loved animals all of her life. Her parents would pick up animals like turtles, bunnies, and other animals, and take them in as pets. She said she had her zookeeper career planned out since she was a kid. Then I asked her about one of the things she likes most about the science center.

My favorite part now about the science center is that in the past, I've primarily worked with one animal at a time species-wise. With the science center, I'm working with a whole slew of different species at one time and so it's just a really unique experience in getting to work with that many animals at once.

Carmen told me that before she came to work at the Greensboro Science Center, she worked at the North Carolina Aquarium. She also used to work at SeaWorld Orlando. For 88.5 WFDD Radio Camp, I'm Damon Chrismon.